The owner of the Independent and Independent on Sunday confirms end of print editions

The Independent newspapers' owner, Evgeny Lebedev.
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It's the end of an era for a British print newspaper powerhouse.

The paper editions of the Independent and the Independent on Sunday newspapers will close after nearly 30 years in print. The papers' Russian billionaire owner, Evegeny Lebedev, confirmed the news in an email to employees.

"We will cease to print The Independent and Independent on Sunday. The Independent's last edition is expected to be on Saturday 26th March and the last Independent on Sunday is expected be on Sunday 20th March, enabling us to focus our collective energy on the digital Independent," Lebedev said.

"We will be the first of many leading newspapers to embrace a wholly digital future. All of us are immensely proud of the Independent titles, which are better newspapers now than they have been for many years, thanks to your remarkable creativity, work ethic and passion."

The closely associated tabloid paper I, which remains profitable, will be sold for £24 million ($34.9 million) to Johnston Press, which owns The Scotsman. Proceeds from the sale are expected to be poured into growing the Independent's website. Lebedev announced that the sale would enable the Independent to create "25 new content roles, launch a new subscription mobile App, enhance the redesigned, thriving http://independent.co.uk, open new editorial bureaux in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, and invest further in our New York based US operation."

The 25 I employees, working mostly in editorial, will keep their jobs under the new ownership, according to a press release. Editor Oliver Duff will also remain with the title.

A journalist at the Independent told Business Insider the expected closing of the print edition was not unexpected, after several rounds of redundancies over the past few years.

Among the paper's former editors is Andrew Marr, the BBC presenter, who shared his condolences over Twitter:

The profitable London-only sister paper The Evening Standard, also owned by Lebedev, is expected to remain running as normal.

It's been a bad start to 2016 for British newspapers

Editor of The Guardian, Kath Viner.The Guardian
This is another signal of a troubling time for the British newspaper industry in general.

On Thursday, employees at The Guardian received a letter confirming their fears of job cuts, according to The Telegraph. It said: "As our staff costs are by far our biggest overhead, one outcome of the budgeting process may be that redundancies are proposed."

A representative for The Telegraph told Business Insider that the strategic review would be led by the consultancy firm Deloitte and would take three months. Pay increases are being delayed until the review is complete, as is hiring. But the representative said layoffs and a sale were not being discussed.